Paal Payasam and Vadai for Saraswathy Poojai

Day ~9 Saraswathy Pooja

We keep the books on 8th day night for pooja. Though pooja for the books are done on 9th day morning. It is customary to make paal payasam and Vadai for nivedhyam. As kids, we used to look forward to this day, since this was the only day, when we are asked not to study. When our books are kept for pooja, we never used to read even newspaper or any thing on that regard.

Paal Payasam

Instead of doing the traditional way of making, I have opted the easier route, which results in equally good payasam. So why slog extra time in the kitchen. Let me tell you, this method works good for small quanitities. Let me give the recipe first

Ingredients

Broken raw matta/brown rice - 1/4 cup

Milk - 1 litre

Sugar -1 1/4 cup (Can reduce to 1 cup if you want don't want it to be too sweet)

Butter - A teaspoon (optional)

Wash the rice and add all the ingredients in a cooker. Make sure the ingredients come only to 1/4 of the cooker capacity. Later, on cooking, the milk will rise and it will start coming out of the steam vent. This is the reason I said the method suits only to small quanitities. I used my 5 litres cooker. Still during the last few minutes, milk came out through the vent on the top. After first whistle, set the flame to the lowest level. Let it cook for 20 minutes. Switch off the gas and leave it for another 30 minutes. Open the cooker to find creamy, pinkish pal payasam. Add a dab of butter if desired. I don't usually add cardamom powder since I like to retain the creamy milk flavor.

Isn't it easy to cook this way? And doesn't it look like the famous Ambalapuzha Palpayasam. As I have mentioned in my earlier post, husband doesn't eat this payasam. So its the only occassion that I make this payasam.

Vadai

I have posted the recipe earlier.

Navarathri Day 7 & 8 - Rice coconut Payasam, Cherupayar Sundal & Moong Dal Payasam and Kabuli Channa Sundal

Day 7

Rice Coconut Payasam



Ingredients
Rice - 3 tblspn

Coconut - 1/2 portion

Milk - 1 cup

Cardamom powder - 1 tspn

Ghee - 2 tspn

Cashewnuts - 10 nos

Wash and soak rice in enough water for half an hour. Grate the coconut. Grind the soaked rice and grated coconut together into a coarse paste. Take two cups of water in a wide vessel. Mix in the ground coarse paste to the water. Boil over low fire, enabling rice to get cooked well. Keep stirring to avoid lumps. Rice turns lumpy quickly on cooking. When rice is cooked well, add sugar. Stir well. When sugar is fully dissolved, add the milk. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for few minutes. Stir in the cardamom powder and roasted cashewnuts and remove from fire.

I followed the recipe from Meenakshi Ammal's. The recipe said 3/4 cups of rice. I used the said amount and the payasam turn into a pudding consistency. Then I adjusted by adding milk. So in the recipe I gave above, I have reduced the amount of rice.

Cherupayar/Whole moong Sundal - Sweet.

The procedure is same as the vella payar (black eyed beans) sundal. With whole moong, no soaking is required. I just dry roast and pressure cook. It cooks mushy and is perfect for the sundal.

Day 8

Moong Dal Payasam

Moong dal - 3/4 cup

Jaggery - 1 cup

Milk - 2 cups

Roasted cashewnuts - 10 nos

Elaichi powder - 1/2 tspn

Dry roast moong dal over low fire for few minutes. Pressure cook dal and it should be cooked well. Melt jaggery in 1/2 cup of water in a thick bottomed vessel. When the syrup starts bubbling, stir in the cooked and mashed dal. Let it simmer for few minutes so that the dal soaks in the jaggery flavor. Stir in boiled milk and boil for few minutes. Don't let it simmer since it might curdle. Usually, with jaggery, coconut milk is used. Add elaichi powder and garnish with roasted cashewnuts.

Kabuli Channa Sundal

The procedure is same as the kadala sundal given earlier

And with another one post, I will finish the Navarathri series.  I wanted to post these as and when it was made. But could not. After Navarathri, the days went in a flash and by the time I finish with these, its time for Diwali treats.

Navarathri Day 5 &6 - Kozhukkattai Payasam, Ammini Kozhukkattai & Poori Payasam, Puli Avil

Day 5

Kozhukkattai Payasam

I have heard of kozhakkattai payasam but never got an opportunity to taste. My MIL has tasted it a relative's house and she gave me an outline of the recipe. But didnot know the proprtions well. The recent addition to my cook book collection is Meenakshi Ammal's 'Cook & See' Part II which has a lovely collection of traditional sweets and payasams. Since I had decided to make 9 different payasams for Navarathri, I got an opportunity to try it out.  I tried with half the quantity mentioned in the book. That was  enough to serve 4.


Ingredients



Rice flour - 1 cup

salt - a pinch

Water - 1 cup

Ghee - 1 tspn

Jaggery - 1 cup

Milk - 1 cup

Coconut Milk - 1/2 cup

Cardamom powder -1/2 tspn



Method


Prepare the rice flour in the same way is made for different savouries - Soaking, shade drying and powdering. I get it pound in the flour mill. So that part is easy.


To make Kozhukkattais

Equal quantity of water to the measure flour is used. Here 1 cup of water is heated with a  teaspoon of ghee and a pinch of salt in a shallow vessel. When the water starts boiling, slowly stir in the flour without forming lumps. Turn well for 3-5 minutes. When the flour gets  cooked well (you will know by the change in colour of the dough), switch of the fire and cover  and leave it for 10 minutes. Spread the cooked dough on a plate to cool. Knead well with ghee. Make small balls to the  size of small gooseberries.



To preapre the payasam.

Measure the rolled balls/kozhukkattais. Using the same cup/vessel, measure equal quanitities of water. If you measure 2 cups of kozhukkattais, take 2 cups of water. Boil the water in a wide vessel. When the water starts boiling, add few balls, at a time. Once a batch is added, give time for the balls to cook and come up to the surface. I added in 3 batches (around 25 nos in each batch). Once all the balls are added, while boiling, gently turn the balls with a flat spoon. Don't do stir it often since it will break the balls. Also do not add all the balls at once, since the balls will dissolve in the water. If you keep in mind these aspects, you cannot go wrong. 

Once the kozhakkattais are well cooked, add the powdered jaggery. When the jaggery melts and blends well, add the milk. Cook for two minutes. Add the coconut milk. Just bring it to a boil. Let it not reach the rolling boil stage since it might curdle. Remove and add the elaichi powder. If desired, roasted cashewnuts can also be added.

To make a vegan version, you can use omit milk and use only coconut milk. I liked it very much. Though reading the recipe may give you the impression of a laborious process, it will not take more than 30 minutes to prepare the payasam. Only the kozhakkattai making part takes time. Rest is very easy.

Ammini Kozhukkattai

Since I pound the flour in large quantity, I decided to make ammini Kozhukkatai for evening prasadom. The kids who comes daily for prasadom loves this and have been asking me when I will be making it for prasadom. The kozhakkattais dough is prepared the same as I mentioned ealier. Since this are savory, my MIL grinds 2 chillies along with a tablespoon of rice flour to a fine paste. This chilly paste is added to the boiling water before the flour is tipped in. This will give a nice flavor and some heat to the kozhukkattais. The kozhakkattais are then steamed for 10 minutes. When cool, it is sauteed in a seasoning of mustard, red chillies and curry leaves.

Day 6 ~ Poori Payasam & Puli Avil



Poori Payasam

Recipe Source : Meenakshi Ammal's Cook & See (II)


Ingredients

Wheat flour - 3/4 cup

Milk - 2 cups

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn

Saffron a pinch

Water - 1 1/2 cups

Oil to deep fry.


Method

Knead wheat flour with little water a 2 tspn of ghee. The dough is quite stiff. Roll out into thick pooris. Cut the poories into small diamond shaped peices. Deep fry the pieces till it is crisp and golden brown in color. While frying, something else took my attention away for few seconds, one batch was just brown.

Boil 1 1/2 cups of water in a wide vessel. Whe the water starts boiling, slowly drop the fried  pieces and let it cook for 5 minutes. Add the sugar. When the sugar melts, add the milk and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for few minutes. Add saffron and elaichi and remove from fire. I found the payasam to be very watery. So I mixed 2 teaspoons of arrowroot powder in cold milk and stirred into the payasam  and cooked till the payasam starts thickening. Also next time I will reduce the sugar to 1 cup since it was too sweet for our palette.  My MIL said she has tasted where the pieces are not cut this way. Instead the fried poories are later torn into pieces and added to payasam. I think that might give a better texture to the payasam too. The payasam tasted like the sugar dipped diamond bisuits added to milk.

Puli Avil

I have already blogged about puli avil using lemon juice. Instead of lemon juice for the tangy taste, tamarind extract is used. So the tamarind juice is added soon after the seasoning and its cooked till it thickens. Rest of the procedure is same. Here I have added peanuts too to give a crunch to the avil.

Navarathri Day 3 & 4 - Avil Payasam, Kadalai sundal, Arisi Paruppu Payasam & Kesari

Day ~ 3

Aval Payasam & Black Channa Sundal

I have posted the recipe for Aval Payasam earlier.

Brown Chickpeas  Karuppu Kadalai Sundal

Brown chickpeas - 2 cups
Turmeric a pinch
Salt

To season
Coconut Oil - 1 tblspn
Mustard seeds - 1 tspn
Green chilly - 2 nos
Red chilly - 1 no
Ginger - a small piece
Hing
Curry leaves - few
Gated coconut - 2 tblspn

Wash and soak the channa overnight. Rinse and pressure cook with a pinch of turmeric. These variety of chikcpeas doesn't turn mushy on cooking. Even when cooked soft, it remains firm in shape.  Drain the cooked water. Heat a kadai and do the seasoning with mustard seeds, chopped green chillies, ginger , broken red chillies and curry leaves. Add the cooked and drained chana. Mix in salt and let it cook on slow flame for the chana to soak in the flavors. You can add little of the cooked water to retain bit of moisture. Garnish with freshly grated coconut.

Day ~ 4

Arisi, paruppu payasam and Kesari


Arisi, paruppu payasam ( Raw rice, Moongdal Payasam)

Raw rice - 3/4 cup
Moong dal - 1/4 cup
Jaggery -1 cup
Ghee - 2 tblspn
Cashew and raisins - 10 nos each
Cardamom powder - 1/2 tspn

Dry roast rice and ghee separately. Roast rice till the color changes lightly. Dal can be roasted till you can smell the aroma. Leave rice and dal to cool. Wash and pressure cook in 3 cups of water. In a kadai or any thick bottomed vessel, melt the jaggery with 1/4 cup of water. Strain to remove any impurities. Boil the syrup. When the jaggery syrup starts bubbling, stir in the cooked rice and dal combo. Mix well. Continue to cook, till the jaggery flavor is abosrbed by the dal and rice. By then, the mix would have thickened. Remove from fire. Roast cashew and raisins in ghee and garnish the payasam. The paysam will not be very sweet. If you would like it having sweeter, increase the jaggery quantity.

Kesari

You can find the kesari recipe here

Murukku ~ Indian Cooking Challenge # 3

Srivalli chose murukku for the September Challenge.  For me, murukku means the kai murukku, which needs some expertise to make. My amma is an expert on that. More on that murukku in a later post. I must admit, this month's ICC was a breeze for me. It must have been a real challenge, if she had chosen the kai murukku. Though I make muthusaram, the recipe given by Valli was different from what I make. I found this recipe simpler with few ingredients.

Srivalli had given the ratio of Rice to Urad dal as 4:1. Since I had ground more quanity of rice, I measured 2 cups of rice flour and proceeded with the making. Proportinaly I took urad dal flour too. For those of you who are not starting from scratch, this measurement might be useful. Apart from this, I followed her recipe. When ever I make murukku of this kind, I directly press into the oil. This time I wanted to try making the concentric circles kind and tried my hand at that. It was easy, but time consuming. After making around 10 numbers that way, I felt back to my old ways.

2 cups of rice flour - Soaked, shade dried and powdered

1/3 cup f urad dal flour - Roasted and powdered

1 1/2 tblspn of butter

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tspn

Sesame seeds - 1/2 tspn

Hing - a small piece soaked in water

Water to make the dough

Take both rice and urad dal flour in a wide vessel.  Add salt, butter, cumin and sesame seeds. Mix well. I used the solid hing. So I soak it in water for half an hour . Add the hing water. Gather everything well to get a crumbly mix. Slowly add water to get a soft dough. If too much water is added, then you will have trouble pressing into oil. The dough will keep breaking while you press.

Heat oil in a kadai and when the oil is hot, press into the oil and cook over medium flame. Gently turn the murkkus with a slotted spoon and cook till it is golden in color. Drain on absorbent paper and when cool, store in airtight container.  If you have both the flours ready, then its really easy to make. The only problem with this murukku is that it gets over in the same speed its made.

Navaratri Day 2 ~ Besan Payasam & Kosumalli

Day 2

Besan Payasam


Besan/gram flour/ kadalamavu is roasted in ghee and cooked in milk and finally sweetend with sugar. Its that simple. It requires very less time to make.  A simple, yet exotic dessert is ready in flat 15 minutes. The ingredients are always available in our pantry. 

Besan/Bengal Gram flour/Kadalamvu - 2 tblspn

Boiled milk - 1/2 litre

Sugar - 3 tblspn

Ghee - 1 tspn

Heat ghee in a pan and add besan. Roast the flour till nice aroma comes through. Leave it to cool. Add cool milk to the roasted flour and slowly mix to form a paste avoiding lumps. Stir in the paste to the remaining boiled milk. Boil the milk+besan mix and let it simmer for 5 minutes. The milk will start thickening. Stir in sugar. The sugar will melt and dilute the mix. When it boils again, remove from fire. The payasam will have a creamy consistency and will taste like mysurpa. You can adjust the sugar according to your taste. This will taste good when served warm or chill for few hours and serve like pudding.

Optionaly you can add some roasted cashewnuts too for extra richness. This will serve two people sufficiently When you have unexpected guests and don't know what to make for dessert, this will come quite handy. A very forgiving recipe except that you need to take care that besan doesn't turn lumpy when added to milk.

Kosumalli - Kadalapruppu Sundal

Bengal gram - 1 cup

Turmeric - a pinch

Salt to taste

Grated coconut - 2 tblspn

Seasoning

Coconut oil - 2 tblspn

Mustard seeds - 1 tspn

Green chilli - 2 nos

Red chilly - 1 no

Finely chopped ginger - 1/2 tspn

Curry leaves

Pressure cook kadalapruppu with turmeric till it is soft yet firm. Care should be taken while cooking so that it doesn't turn mushy. If it is not cooked well on pressure cooking, you can cook it for some more time on stove top.Then you will know when to stop. Drain the cooked dal and leave it on the colander for few minutes for the water to drain out completely. Also on cooling, it will firm up. So it doesn't turny mushy on the next step of preparation.

Heat oil preferably coconut oil(or vegetable oil ). Add mustard seeds, red chilli-broken into two, chopped green chillies, ginger and curry leaves. Add salt and the cooked and drained dal. Gently mix with a flat spatula, taking care not to make it mushy. Cook on low fire for 5 minutes for the dal to absorb the flavors and salt. Finally add fresh grated coconut and remove from fire.

Navaratri Day 1 ~ Neipayasam & Vella Avil

I make  payasam for nivedhyam, after the pooja in the morning, during Navarathri. Sundals are for evening. So it is two prasadom at home for the nine days. This time I decided to make different payasams on all the nine days. Else it used to be vella payasam ( jaggery and rice payasam) on most of the days.

Day ~1
Neipayasam  & Vella Avil

I have already posted the recipe for Neipayasam .

Vella Avil  ~  Beaten rice flakes cooked in jaggery syrup

Avil/Beaten rice flakes - 2 cups


Powdered jaggery - 1 1/2 cup

Water -1/2 cup

Ghee - 2 tablespoon

Fresh grated coconut - 3 tblspn

Powdered cardamom/elaichi - 1 tspn

Thick variety of avil is usually used for making.. If you can get the matta/brown avil , all the more better. Wash and soak in enough water for 10 minutes. Drain and squeeze the water out of the avil. Leave it on the colander for 5 minutes.

Melt jaggery in 1/2 cup water. Strain to remove impurities if any. Heat the syrup to one thread conistency. check the consistency by dropping little syrup in a tablespoon of water. You should be able to roll it into a smooth ball. Stir in the soaked avil. Gently mix. Continue cooking till all the moisture dries up. Add ghee, grated coconut and cardamom and mix well. It might look sticky and goeey. When it comes to room temperature, avil will look separate and firm.

Navarathri Golu 2009 Pictures

Here are few pics of the golu at my home. I keep Golu inside my pooja room. I have make shift golu padis made to suit the room.

Decoration above the golu

Chettiyar with arisi and paruppu (Rice & Dal)

We don't have practise of Varalakshmi nombu. And my MIL wanted to deck up Devi and keep for the Golu. This is our first attempt. In the process, we got the hang of it. So next year may be we can better ourselves. We planned to keep it as part of the Golu. But it did not match the height of the Golu padis. So decided to keep Devi just outside the Pooja room. To match that, moved Chettiyar and his wares to the other end.

Every day morning, I make a payasam to be offered after the pooja and sundals are reserved for the evening bhakshanam. Today is neipayasam.

My sister at Gurgaon has sent her golu pic. This is the first time she has kept Golu.

Pollavadai ~ Navarathri Special

Tomorrow, Navarathri begins. Its celebration time for the next 10 days. In my home, we follow the tradition of keeping golu. Evenings are busy with everyone visiting Golus in the neighborhood. Ladies visit only once to a house where as the children of the neighborhood are the privileged lot who visits all nine days,to all the houses where Golus are kept . The different kind of prasadoms make their dinner. I too had similar days during my childhood. There are four temples in our neighborhood. Prasadoms are distributed in all those temples after the night Aarti, during navarathri days, irrespective of whether it is a Devi temple or not. The first one to start was at the temple very near my house. After our golu visits, we proceed to temple hopping to collect prasadoms before it gets over. The last day at the temple, will be grand with as many as 8 prasadoms ranging from sundals, sweets like laddoo, mysurpa etc.

I am giving the recipe for Pollavadai, which is a popular Golu bhakshanam. Its similar to Thattai, but smaller in size.

You need
Rice flour - 11/2 cups

Chana dal - 1/4 cup

Tuvar dal - 1/4 cup

Urad dal - 1 tblspn

Red chilly - 3 nos

Hing powder - few shakes

Curry leaves - 2 stalks

Salt to taste

Oil to deep fry

Wash and soak the dals together in enough water for an hour. Drain. Grind to a coarse paste along wit red chilly, hing, curry leaves and salt. Don't add water. Mix in the rice flour to the ground dal mix and prepare the dough, similar to chappati dough. Take gooseberry/marble sized dough and press it down into flat thin discs with your fingers. You can use oiled ziplock covers or banana leaves. Meanwhile heat oil in a kadai. When the oil is smoking hot, slowly drop the flattened discs into the oil. Lightly press it down with the perforated ladle. The puffed discs will come up to the oil. Gently turn them and remove when it is golden brown. Drain on kitchen towels and store in airtight containers. This will stay crisp for a day or two unlike thattais. This is mostly made as an evening tea time snack and not for storing for a long period.

Happy Navarathri to you all. Enjoy the 9 days of festivity.

After my vacation, except for the Onam post, my blog is mainly dormant. Call it blogger's block or sheer laziness on my part, I somehow couldn't bring myself to blog. Finally the arrival of long festive days have brought me here. Hope to continue posting as usual. I had the pleasure of meeting Harini and her son during my vacation. True to her blog avatar, Sunshinemom, she indeed has a radiant personality.

Happy Onam 2009

Wishing you all a very Happy ONAM 2009.

I am back home after a short vacation. Thanks to my maid who stocked up my fridge with the necessary veggies, I could prepare Onam Sadhya. In the morning, I thought rain will play the spoil sport, but it stopped by 9 A.M so that everyone could make pookalm without fearing of it getting washed away. I managed to make a small one with the flowers from my garden. Since we reached only yesterday late evening, could not buy flowers. And I prefer making pookalam with my garden flowers. Just finished our heavy lunch and I thought I will wish you all and say that I am back. For the time being, its just photos and no recipes.

Image of Bhagavathy drawn using flowers in our nearby temple

Pookalam at my home

Onasadhya - 2009

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